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Post by paperexplorer on Jul 28, 2022 23:53:17 GMT
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Post by drmanhattan on Aug 10, 2022 22:21:49 GMT
Where are you seeing the internal art.?
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Post by paperexplorer on Aug 11, 2022 1:29:10 GMT
the artist put a couple of images up on his instagram account and they look great Check them out hereI especially like the wolf riders
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Post by hallucination on Aug 11, 2022 18:10:45 GMT
Wow.
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Post by stevendoig on Aug 11, 2022 19:34:22 GMT
Jings! - they are great! - hope the actual book is just as guid.
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Post by drmanhattan on Sept 1, 2022 16:54:28 GMT
Its the exact same art, the one with the hill goblins and wolves is on paragraph 196, mine just arrived this week
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Post by time4tea on Sept 3, 2022 12:05:50 GMT
Looks like they're doing away with the unpleasant porthole covers for these ones? If so, it's a very good move and I hope those portholes never come back.
(y'know ... I'm old-fashioned, but I like to actually be able to *see* the cover artwork ...) /sarcasm
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Post by The Editor (Alex B) on Sept 3, 2022 19:44:25 GMT
The pattern seems to be porthole-style for reprints. So I imagine in time these new titles will get porthole-variants.
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Post by misomiso on Sept 5, 2022 9:57:53 GMT
Secrets of Salamonis - the Review! TLDR -Brilliant book. By far and away the best FF entry for a while, and easily hits the heights of the early years. -Innovative concept, gameplay, design, and great writing. -Really good having the book as a colab with J green as it combined Steve’s creativity with Jon’s modern gamebook knowledge -Some criticisms, but these are very very high level points which shouldn’t detract from the achievement of the book -Overall incredibly enjoyable experience Longer good points -Conceptually a really really good fighting fantasy book. Maybe the best hub design we’ve ever see -Jon Green’s influence is excellent. You can really see where he helped Steve put his concept into reality, and having the book as a colaberation raises the overall quality of the adventure. -The book is just incredibly fun to play. The writing tone is great as it’s not too serious and has some humour, which often gets missed in today's grittier stories -No codewords! I’ve never really liked code words as a mechanic (though they can work sometimes eg Night of the Necromancer), and it’s so refreshing to not have them - it makes the experience of playing the book a lot smoother overall. -Havn’t mentioned it yet but Amonour is a brilliant mechanic. It works so well and is a very natural extension of the Fighting Fantasy system. -The Easter eggs are all great and lots of fun to try and spot. Criticisms -The Day of the week mechanic is a bit fiddly for me. It’s another thing to track, and I would imagine is quite bad for new players as it’s quite a barrier gameplay wise. -I felt there was a little bit of a lack of narrative drive - I loved the idea of having the main character turn up in Salomonis wanting to be an adventurer, but maybe he could also have wanted to live up to his father, or find the man who killed him (Cardinal Zym lets say), or perhaps the dream at the beginning is a bit more specific about the coming wars. -The ‘Time’ aspect of the book sometimes felt a little bit disjointed. Some quests would take a day, where as one training session took 6 months, and you could learn magic very very quickly. Perhaps you could have a different skill to world lore, and maybe the main character has some fae blood or a history of studying magic which would make learning magic a bit more realistic, and help have the ‘Time’ aspect a bit more coherent. -Perhaps the book is a bit easy….but I think that’s fine to keep it accessible. Maybe they could put in an ‘achievement’ or ‘hard mode’ system where you have to play the book in a certain way (Skill costs twice as much Amonour, you can’t learn certain skills etc) for us hard core fans! -There are a couple of other tweaks, for example maybe the training section could be split up a bit for better pacing, or we could have had more specificity on when you can go on your ‘special’ training assignments etc (After two Quests?). And some of the Quests could have been a lot longer! 600 entries next time Steve and Jon! But I really don’t want to detract from how good the book is. I would say again that the book is brilliant; the criticisms I’ve outlined are just very very high level thoughts on how you could tweak it etc. I would recommend all FF and gamebook fans to buy the book and try it out without hesitation, as it’s just a great book that is very relaxing and fun to read. Well done Steve and Jon, and may your Stamina never fail!
EDIT: Wanted to also say that there is a lot of great stuff in this book that I havn't covered - the concept of opening with a dream is brilliant and very brave, your 'companion', your little excusion to somewhere else! All fantastic and creative achievements.
And also the structure of the book is so interesting. It's a real achievement and uses so many good mechanics, and I really feel that this kind of structure could become standard for 'Open World' books. I can already think of lots of variations on this theme!
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Post by time4tea on Sept 5, 2022 11:42:01 GMT
Secrets of Salomonis - the Review!
Nice review and it seems very positive, with mainly just some minor criticisms. It sounds like he's trying a few new things too. I'm quite excited to give this one a try now. Is it available to buy yet (I'm not seeing it on Amazon)?
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Post by CharlesX on Sept 5, 2022 11:55:39 GMT
I ordered Secrets Of Salamonis from Amazon along with Shadow Of The Giants and received e-mail notification it would be available for pick-up from today (don't ask whether I have them as I can't be at the house until the weekend). Their site sells both of them for the regular price as well as weird, expensive second-hand ones (nice to see people jumping on the EBay bandwagon so quickly).
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Post by nathanh on Sept 5, 2022 14:04:50 GMT
Thankfully in my spreadsheet for Stormslayer I had a day-of-week calculator that I could steal for doing this one.
I enjoyed this one. Still got a fair amount to explore as well. The "what order to do the adventures in" question will be interesting to explore.
I'm surprised that nobody had made an FF with this structure before. I guess in some sense Stormslayer hints at it.
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Post by time4tea on Sept 5, 2022 20:57:05 GMT
Hmm ... I can see the two new books if I search on amazon.co.uk, but not on amazon.com (I live in the US). Perhaps they haven't been released in the US yet?
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Post by paperexplorer on Sept 6, 2022 3:11:58 GMT
I ordered through book depository because prices were AUD$10 cheaper than anywhere else I've seen them listed. They are probably a week and a half away from arriving though
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Post by philsadler on Sept 6, 2022 4:54:52 GMT
I ordered through book depository because prices were AUD$10 cheaper than anywhere else I've seen them listed. They are probably a week and a half away from arriving though
No postage costs either!
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Post by misomiso on Sept 6, 2022 9:41:43 GMT
As a follow up, I would also say that from a general design perspective the book is very good, as on a first play through you can get very far, essentially to the end, and have a good time looking around the world, but then if you want to complete it ‘properly’ there is still a lot to do by looking at the order of how you complete things.
It’s a very interesting book.
Steve and Jon I think you could have made it to an even 500 entries though! Just a little side path on one the quests?! 500 is such a nice number…
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Post by Wilf on Sept 6, 2022 10:52:37 GMT
Received this morning with Shadow Of The Giants. Two new opportunities for Adventuring Wilf to die horribly - hooray! First playthrough will be later this evening Thursday, strictly by the rules. Anyone want to predict how I'll snuff it in this one? (Hoping it's not by wandering round in circles due to lack of playtesting, as per Crystal Of Storms...)
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Post by a moderator on Sept 6, 2022 12:48:22 GMT
Anyone want to predict how I'll snuff it in this one? (Hoping it's not by wandering round in circles due to lack of playtesting, as per Crystal Of Storms...) That's a little unfair. If you wind up going round in circles, I'm sure it will be by design (an infinite supply of Chaos Warriors says hi). I can't predict the mean by which you will die, but it wouldn't surprise me if you reach your demise via one of those 'do you choose death (turn to 123) or the abrupt termination of your existence (turn to 456)?' set-ups.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Sept 6, 2022 21:59:27 GMT
Really good book. Really enjoyable and as misomiso said, it matches up to some of the best of the older books. It's brimming over with ideas and could have been longer if the author wanted. And great illustrations too!
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Post by misomiso on Sept 7, 2022 16:35:13 GMT
Worth pointing there are to 'slight' errors that I've spotted - one in your first day of Salamonis and the other when learning the 'extra' skills that you can get through meeting people.
I think you can get stuck in a loop in the first day wandering around Salamonis, and the only way out is to become a beggar and fight? I'm not entirely sure, and it may be deliberate, but you seem to be able to do some of the same things over again. I didn't mind it though, it's just a bit annoying to have to fight a beggar to progress!
The second is when doing the 'additional' skills you seem to be sent back to the original skill select paragrpah where you have the option to go on your 'first' adventure, and you seem to be able to meet the tax collector multiple times. Again this is minor and could be deliberate, but I thought it was worth pointing out.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Sept 7, 2022 17:43:48 GMT
Worth pointing there are to 'slight' errors that I've spotted - one in your first day of Salamonis and the other when learning the 'extra' skills that you can get through meeting people. I think you can get stuck in a loop in the first day wandering around Salamonis, and the only way out is to become a beggar and fight? I'm not entirely sure, and it may be deliberate, but you seem to be able to do some of the same things over again. I didn't mind it though, it's just a bit annoying to have to fight a beggar to progress! The second is when doing the 'additional' skills you seem to be sent back to the original skill select paragrpah where you have the option to go on your 'first' adventure, and you seem to be able to meet the tax collector multiple times. Again this is minor and could be deliberate, but I thought it was worth pointing out. Yes, there's looping as you said, and i don't think it is deliberate - it can't be - you are having the same conversations word for word and experiencing exactly the same things. I broke out of the loop somehow and didn't have to become a beggar - I think I went off to the slaughterhouse or something. The additional skills, as you say here and in a previous post, seem to 'reset' things - we could have done with it being spelt out when you can (or must) do them. Maybe the use of codewords would have worked better here? I've been reading the book on and off the last couple of days and won through in the end on the fifth attempt. No cheating, no fudged dice rolls! Thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Post by misomiso on Sept 7, 2022 18:45:17 GMT
I really enjoyed having no codewords. I think they can work quite well and are worth experimenting with as a gamebook writer, but they also can get overused a lot.
One of the joys of this books is the ability to read it fluidly.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,678
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 7, 2022 19:21:06 GMT
Worth pointing there are to 'slight' errors that I've spotted - one in your first day of Salamonis and the other when learning the 'extra' skills that you can get through meeting people. I think you can get stuck in a loop in the first day wandering around Salamonis, and the only way out is to become a beggar and fight? I'm not entirely sure, and it may be deliberate, but you seem to be able to do some of the same things over again. I didn't mind it though, it's just a bit annoying to have to fight a beggar to progress! The second is when doing the 'additional' skills you seem to be sent back to the original skill select paragrpah where you have the option to go on your 'first' adventure, and you seem to be able to meet the tax collector multiple times. Again this is minor and could be deliberate, but I thought it was worth pointing out. Could you provide the refs please so I can check.
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Post by misomiso on Sept 7, 2022 19:53:39 GMT
@sylas
Ok so the training sections first.
If we are at reference 110 and we've been to the 'Half Darn Sock', we turn to 242 and note '452'so we can learn grifting later, then go to 110 and then turn to 115 to do our 'given' training.
We do two training sequences, and so gain the holy symbol, and so we turn to 4, then to 297 to do the experience, then to 287 where we enter the tax collector sequence.
After this we end up at 120 where we pick some quests and do them.
After say 3 adventures we decide we want another skill so turn to 452 and learn grifting. At the end of that paragraph we are asked if we have a holy symbol and so turn to 4 again, where we go through the tax collector sequence one more time, and the book assumes we havn't met him yet.
I would say that the 'training' sequence feels quite hard to get right - it seems set out to give maximum player freedom of how many skills you train for and at what time, where as an alternate could have been to have a second training sequence some time.
Alternatively the tax collector could have given you an item that meant if you had met him once you got a different result.
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Post by misomiso on Sept 7, 2022 20:37:19 GMT
For Day One in Salamonis I've replayed it to try and find it and there is a 'kind of' loop, but it's not what I thought originally.
So let's say we decide to explore the docks (45), an we don't report the backpack (367), and say we want to join the adventure's guild (390), we then go to (99) where we have the option of following the skinny man (72), or go back to the Grand parade (54), and what ever we choose we end up at the Grand Parade (54) and we've already explored the docks which means we can't go there.
We then do the 'Snouters' sequence and we end up at (415), we don't have a beggars mark so we go to (188), and then we get the option to return to the docks at (45).
The phrase used 'return to' I took to mean we could go back once we've already been, but really this is the 2nd time we enter that sequence - I think I'm right on this?
It's honestly quite small and we should know not to go there as we're told at the Grand Parade to not choose somewhere we have gone before, but I did loop myself when playing! I think I got confused a bit :-(.
The exit for this sequence seems to be the Grifting scene - I think that's the only way out though there are multiple paths to it.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,678
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 7, 2022 21:07:23 GMT
misomisoAlthough there is no specific instruction given, the wording of the text highly suggests that learning Skills is something you do before going on your first quest. As soon as you 'level up' using Amonour, you can no longer learn any more Skills. The 'loop' isn't really a loop if you remember what actions you've already done. This kind of presentation has been around for quite some time. For example, there are plenty of books where you can look at a number of items after which, you will be led back to a section where you have the option to look at any of those items again. Most of the time, the book does not mention 'if you haven't already done so' therefore making all these potential 'loops' if you want them to be.
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Post by misomiso on Sept 7, 2022 21:52:52 GMT
Ah ok fair enough - it's probably just me! I remember getting a bit confused in the training part generally.
That's quite interesting for the book structure though as that means you can only learn a limited number of skills! Changes how you have to play the adventure...
Ty for answering though. Apologies for getting it a bit wrong. :-(
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,678
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Sept 7, 2022 21:57:20 GMT
Ah ok fair enough - it's probably just me! I remember getting a bit confused in the training part generally. That's quite interesting for the book structure though as that means you can only learn a limited number of skills! Changes how you have to play the adventure... Ty for answering though. Apologies for getting it a bit wrong. :-( In all fairness, I do agree that the text should clarify to avoid confusion so you make a good point.
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Post by misomiso on Sept 8, 2022 5:49:14 GMT
Yes - they're definately not errors or loops just maybe places where they could clarify a bit more as you say. Maybe they put in the phrase 'if you havn't returned there yet' for the docks one, and that you may not go for any more training after your first adventure for the other.
It's very good though as I don't think there ARE any proper errors in the book! Pretty solid achievement for Fighting Fantasy! Well done Sylas!
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Post by Wilf on Sept 8, 2022 10:57:17 GMT
First attempt ended in ignominious failure, and no small amount of frustration.
First error occurs before I've even read the background section: I'm told if I've played FF before, I only need to familiarise myself with Amonour and The Wheel Of The Week; this isn't true because I don't roll up my stats for this book, but I'd have missed that if I'd gone straight to the indicated page.
Second and third errors occur before I've even woken up: it's possible to kill the Ogre on ref. 83 (I don't know if it's important that I don't); and despite the Ogre battle being a dream sequence, I don't get my lost Stamina back on 475.
None of which spoiled my overall enjoyment of this ambitious and expertly written book by any significant measure.
The structure of the book is quite unusual. My earlier comment about being stuck in a loop on my first attempt at Crystal wasn't intended as a dig at this title (how could it have been - I hadn't opened it at that point?), and yet I found myself in a loop anyway, having the same conversation twice over on ref. 54. It seems this is a deliberate loop, though, as the final option didn't return me to it, so I'm not (currently) aware this is an error.
I struggled with my Stamina score throughout my short initial playthrough, and also with earning money. A lot of very unlikely die rolls meant I failed to recruit any workers for Pigboy despite having many opportunities to do so. An even more unlikely die roll, however, worked in my favour as I Tested My Luck successfully with a Luck score of 4 when I couldn't pay for my backpack at the Guild.
I came a cropper by being foolish enough to visit the bazaar with only a couple of Gold Pieces to my name. I didn't have enough to pay the odious taxman; got mauled by his dog without even fighting a single round of combat as I was already on 3 Stamina; and then got flung in jail from which I couldn't buy my way out.
Unlike Giants, where I died halfway through the adventure, I feel like I've only scratched the surface of this one, and it's going to reward many repeated plays as I figure out where codewords like Dog Bite and special skills (codewords by any other name) come in handy. I didn't bother pursuing my backpack, thinking I'd see a lot of similar looking backpacks in a city with a Guild full of adventurers in it. I also figured begging and swindling were dishonest, beneath me, and might damage my Amonour score, so I didn't do them either. I think I need to revisit those options for a start to see if they're profitable, and whether they can break me out of the loop more satisfactorily. And then I need to learn about Hamaskis, and... well, go on some more adventures. So much more to do, and I'm looking forward to it because the writing and artwork in this book are absolutely first rate, and the gameplay is inventive and interesting, offering much replayability. I'll happily forgive the odd error if the book is doing new and interesting things with the FF format, and that is exactly what every one of Steve Jackson's books has done, including this one.
Too early for a judgment, but first impressions are... that I'm probably going to enjoy this one after a few more playthroughs. My first several attempts at Creature Of Havoc were equally quick, unsuccessful, and frustrating, too, and that was before I got anywhere near that secret door error, and yet that book is in my Top Three; my first attempts didn't even begin to get to grips with the story proper which is extremely rewarding.
I'm optimistic that this book will slowly reveal itself to be something brilliant, but it's way too early for me to tell. But I'm optimistic based on the glimpse I've already had.
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